Gun/shy / Jim Daniels.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Daniels, Jim, 1956- author.

Series:

Made in Michigan writers series

Language:

English

Genre:

Poetry.

Physical Description:

vii, 110 pages ; 23 cm.

Other Title:

Gun shy

Place of Publication:

Detroit, Michigan : Wayne State University Press, [2021]

Summary:

"The poems in Gun/Shy deal with the emotional weight of making do. Tinged with both the regrets and wisdom of aging, Jim Daniels's poems measure the wages of love in a changing world with its vanishing currency. He explores the effects of family work-putting children to bed, leading parents to their final resting places-and what is lost and gained in those exertions. Childhood and adolescence are examined, through both looking back on his own childhood and on that of his children. While his personal death count rises, Daniels reflects on his own mortality. He finds solace in small miracles-his mother stretching the budget to feed five children with "hamburger surprise" and potato skins, his children collecting stones and crabapples as if they were gold coins. Daniels, as he always has, carries the anchor of Detroit with him, the weight both a comfort and a burden. He explores race, white privilege, and factory work. Eight Mile Road, a fraught border, pulses with division, and the echoes of music, singing through Detroit's soiled but solid heart, resonate in these poems. His first long poem in many years, "Gun/Shy," centers the book. Through the personas of several characters, Daniels dives into America's gun culture and the violent gulf between the fearful and the feared. Throughout, he seeks connection in likely and unlikely places: a river rising after spring rain and searchlights crossing the night sky. Comets and cloudy skies. Cement ponds and the Garden of Eden. Adolescence and death. Wounds physical and psychic. Disguises and more disguises. These are the myths we memorize to help us sleep at night, those that keep us awake and trembling. Daniels's accessible language, subtlety, and deftness make this collection one that belongs on every poetry reader's shelf"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: 1. Hamburger Surprise

Sunday Best

My Mother at the Sewing Machine

Stuffing the Birds, Carnegie Natural History Museum

Potato Skins

Returning the Stones

My Father Worked 800 Hours of Overtime

Wasting My Life, 3:00 a.m.

The New Math

Bahia Honda, Key West

I Love Watching Rivers

Fog on the Turnpike

Hamburger Surprise

2. Street View

Shouting a Sonnet into Detroit's Dead Microphone

Searchlights

Legendary Toads

The Year of Burning

Between Double Doors

On a Personal Level

Midnight Football

Harlem Globetrotters, Olympia Stadium

Abandoned School in the Rain

Still Life with Phone Booth

Phone Booth, Eight Mile and Ryan

Google Maps: Street View

3. Gun/Shy

Gun/Shy

4. Leaving the Piano Behind

Fishing in the Cement Pond

Strawberries and Mirrors

My Daughter Turned Thirteen Today

Private Room

Test Bomb Fallout

Poison Control

Music of the Light Timer

Leaving the Piano Behind

Hale Bopp

5. The Grand Design

My Mother Advises Me to Get a Mani/Pedi

The Wound Doctor

High School Diploma, 1917

Declaring Bankruptcy

First Week Back After Stent

Annual Checkup with Money Specialist

Miracles

Spanning

The Secret Agent Briefcase

Honorary Honor

Property Value

Neighbor Down on Bridge

Empty Nest

Ripe Serviceberries

Tying My Shoe at the New Pornographers Concert

Final Miracle Before Retiring from Slowpitch

The Grand Design.

ISBN:

0814348785

9780814348789

OCLC:

1243350903